Chatbots have revolutionised the way brands and organisations interact with their customers. Leveraging natural language processing (NLP) and artificial intelligence, chatbots make education and shopping more personalised and healthcare more accessible.
The global chatbot market was valued at $17.17 billion in 2020 and is projected to reach $102.29 billion by 2026, at a CAGR of 34.75% during the forecast period (2021 – 2026).
Let’s look at the best languages to build a chatbot.
Python
Python is one of the best languages. The presence of AIML (Artificial Intelligence Markup Language) makes it easier to compose syntax. It also reduces the margin of errors for beginners and professionals. Python makes it easy for developers to define strategic roadmaps for the chatbots to take under different scenarios. It’s used to make the conversational components hosted on the webserver.
“Natural Language Toolkit’s (NLTK) initial release was in 2001 — five years ahead of its Java-based competitor Stanford Library NLP — serving as a wide-ranging resource to help your chatbot utilise the best functions of NLP,” according to a news report. NLTK is superior, thanks to its additional support for other languages, multiple versions and interfaces for other NLP tools and even the capability to install some Stanford NLP packages and third-party Java projects, the report added.
Highlights:
- Less development time
- NLP support in many languages
- GUI programming support
- Free and open-source
Java
The high-level programming features of Java makes it a perfect choice to build a robust chatbot. Just like Python, the coding is easy and user-friendly. It also offers a standard widget and visualisation feature to help programmers monitor work regularly.
It is an object-oriented language offering portability. Juned Ghachi, co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer at IndianAppDevelopers said, having been a popular language for decades, Java boasts of a robust global community of developers ready to help you get rid of any problem you are stuck with.
Highlights:
- Clean syntax
- High-performance
- Inbuilt garbage collection
- Highly scalable
- Lean and portable
- Vast library
- Easy integration with existing systems
Clojure
Clojure helps build an efficient chatbot system seamlessly. With this, you can access Java Frameworks for optional type hints and inference, empowering developers to create code in the form of multiple functions.
Besides running on JVM, Clojure offers a reactive agent system and transactional memory system. It is thus multi-threaded, which enables the chatbot to handle many queries at a time. The availability of higher-order recursive functions makes it suitable for beginners. It allows the developers to code an app with a chronological series of functions.
Highlights:
- Precise and error-free code
- Multi-threaded code
- Easy-to-use
- Higher-order recursive functions
Lisp
Lisp is the most popular language when it comes to creating chatbots. Its dynamic prototyping abilities makes it a desired language for chatbot training.
Lisp leverages its rich library to process symbolic information rather quickly. This makes it easy for programmers to build bots for specific purposes.
The development cycle enables recompilation of files and interactive evaluation of expressions efficiently when the programme is still in operation.
Highlights:
- Excellent prototyping capabilities
- Efficient symbolic information processing
- Adaptive to specific issues
PHP
This open-source language is a cost-effective option for developers. PHP is also easy to use and a lot quicker than many languages.
It also makes many libraries accessible. It allows developers to connect it with various third-party applications. With this, developers can build bots that can run seamlessly on multiple platforms. Additionally, it is a high-level language that can work in a complex IT environment, making chatbot development easy.
Highlights:
- Pocket friendly
- Faster than many others
- Bots can function in complex IT setups
- Platform-independent
